Wintering Well
Winter & The Element Of Water
A Self Paced Retreat and Inner Journey
Welcome, Brave Soul.
The extremes of winter's harshness and exquisite beauty carry potent wisdom and medicine.
The long nights and gray skies often stir our own shadows… the vivid whiteness of snow and magic of water transforming to crystals fill us with wonder and awe. Water, freezing and thawing relentlessly, infuses roots, and seeds with nourishment for the year ahead.
Join me in sinking deep into the wisdom of wintering well. It is key for sustaining life and creativity!
My prayer is that this experience leaves you with a few more candles for your lamp, a few new lenses to look through, and some tools to help with your journey. May you be infused with courage, meaning and peace.of hope.
Now join me, as I light a candle and pour you a cup of tea.
This is a self-paced journey.
Simply follow along and take one step at a time.
Step 2: Create a Sacred Space
Beauty is a bridge to the divine, and your physical environment is so important.
When you bring an experience like this virtual retreat into your five senses, it becomes anchored into your body. The medicine becomes more potent, and the effects are exponential. Take time to create a sacred sanctuary for yourself, and open yourself to a holy experience. Relax, I’ll walk you through step by step.
1. Choose a place where you can feel safe and protected. Space to feel whatever you need to feel.
2. You will need to gather some things… and the gathering is part of the beauty… really slow down as you gather these things and prepare for the evening. Turn on music, here’s my favorite playlist.
Gather
A journal and your favorite pen
3 (or more) items that you can touch feel -that bring delight to your eyes. These could be things that you find in your yard, around your house etc. Something beautiful or interesting that captures your attention visually.
A vase or bowl of water.
One item that can be rolled out or used as a foundation of your alter space. It could be a fabric, a rug, a plate, a board or a tray… Even a napkin or a scarf.
Something to burn, a candle, incense etc.
If you have essential oils pick one intuitively.
Wear something that is both comfortable and that aligns with your expression. It can be pajamas or it could be a beautiful piece that reminds you of your own beauty.
Prepare yourself a hot beverage or a pot of tea, something you can wrap your hands around, and warm your belly
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF. If you are not able to gather a thing, it is ok! You are enough.
3. Arrange. This is a fluid unfolding process.
Lay out your foundation piece
Light your candle or incense
Pick up one piece that you would like to use as your focal point or center.
Arrange the rest of the items that you’ve gathered on this alter space in any design that is beautiful to you… just allow it to unfold.
Ask if anything is missing… Go get whatever you feel might be needed.
Step 3: Settle in and Begin
Although we will be in seemingly separate places in time and location, something magical happens when individuals come together and align our intentions with one another. We create an interwoven experience with the quantum fabric of the universe, with Source… and each other.
You are not alone, Love. You are not alone.
Reflection & Application
A few prompts to explore.
Pick up your Journal…
1. Awareness
Overall, as you reflect on this experience what has stood out to you?
What stirred you?
2. Chaos & Potential
“Chaos: The non linear void from which ALL potential and possibility arises.”
Look over your life, your body, and your environment. Are you experiencing chaos? The unknown? Fear, apprehension, friction? What potential could be waiting for you there?
What stirs your curiosity? Are there themes throughout your life that are clues? What do you long for? What would you like to see come to fruit in the next 12 months?
3. The Deepest Yin: Winter / Water Element
The freezing and thawing of winter breaks down all that has been shed into bio available nourishment for life. Look back into autumn, what did you prune? What did you let go of? How are those experiences nourishing you now?
Underground in the unseen, roots are expanding and seeds are waking. Reflect on all you planted last year, what seeds could be stirring awake now?
Meditate on the unseen structure of your life, what is needed to increase your stability? What can you do daily/weekly that is replenishing? How can you make deposits in your “Savings account?” Make this simple and actionable.
4. Heart’s Furnace
Put your hand on your heart, ask your heart “what wisdom do you have for me?”
“What is deeply meaningful to you?”
“What ignites your passion?”
“What do you burn for?”
“What fills your heart with joy?”
Don’t over think it, just write the answers that just pop in to your mind. (Its ok to feel like you are making it up, many of us have forgotten the sound of our own heart voice.)
5. Jing Shen
This is not the season to create a detailed strategy to bring all this into the light of day. It is the season to nourish your dreams and stoke the warmth of your heart’s fire.
You will feel the nudges of spring soon! Spring energy will begin to spark you into action. Spring with it’s inevitable, exponential expansion! Weeding, pruning and planting will be called for soon.
But for now, my love, you can just rest. Rest, dream and trust the timing of your own soul.
“ Jing Shen: I know who I am, I know why I’m here. I know how to live. I am at the right place, at the right time, for the right reason:
To manifest my purpose, essence and destiny. Here and now.”
-Lonny Jarrett from Nourishing Destiny
Physical and energetic integration
Consider returning to these practices daily (or more!) for this season. Energy Medicine is cumulative. gently editing the blueprint of your patterns, in your mind and your body.
Take note of how your body and feel before you begin this portion, and then again after.
Track the shifts.
When you experience overwhelm, fear, dread, or anxiety this practice is here to help regulate your nervous system’s response. By balancing the energies that contribute to the fight or flight response. Bringing calm to the mind and body.
Resonate & embody your highest essence. Jing Shen = you are exactly where you’re supposed to be at exactly the right time for exactly the right reason doing exactly what you’re meant to do in alignment with your highest purpose.
Jing Shen Energy Medicine Practice: Reflect, resonate & embody highest essence!
The Daily Energy Routine Flow.
These movements keep the subtle energy systems of your body humming in coherence, order and most importantly flow. This is vital for energy hygiene!
Setting aside a few minutes a day to practice any or all of these pactices or the Daily Energy Routine is invaluable. Just imagine, healing at the most fundamental level… the voltage that powers and instructs your entire body. It’s life changing.
More About Energy Medicine Here
If you have any issues with playback here, is a direct link to the main video file.
BONUS:
Are you feeling dry, dormant, aching for life of your branches? Are you desperate to let go of all that you are gripping, but too terrified, or too paralyzed know what to drop?
A couple of years ago I hosted a virtual retreat and recorded it. It is raw, real and unpolished, and let me tell you it was profound. I am adding it here because while you will hear similarities in the fundamentals I teach here and in the first video, there is a completely different energy and focus. A totally different experience.
As I rewatched it myself today it was exactly what I needed. So, I thought it neded to be brought to the world again.
May it bless you.
Print for this workshop:
If you are needing deeper,
one-on-one support, reach out.
I would be honored to be with you.
Brave soul, thank you for tending to your heart… Your body… As you care for yourself and embrace the polarity of this journey, you heal… And in your own healing, your light gets brighter… Which in turn brightens the whole earth. So thank you, thank you so much.
-Elizabeth
As always, I acknowledge my many teachers. Most of all Dr. Sara Allen & Debra Hurt.